State-of-the-Art Screw-Retained Hybrids and Attached Bar Overdentures: Not Your Father's Highwater Bridge!

As a boutique laboratory owner specializing in removables and implant prostheses since 1983, I can't help but get excited when technology delivers new products that greatly advance our ability to provide patients with an improved device. Considering that fixed/detachable, removable implant prosthetics is one of the fastest-growing segments in dentistry today, the advancements as well as the excitement have been abundant over the past few years.
I fabricated my first implant-supported, screw-retained hybrid (SRH) or "highwater bridge" about 25 years ago. The bar was a cast precious alloy, the acrylic was press-packed and heat-processed and the teeth were either Isosit or IPN. Today, I'm fabricating the same prosthesis with greater passivity, strength and success using a CAD/CAM-milled titanium bar from Nobel Biocare Procera, Ivocap injected acrylic and the new Ivoclar ^SRPhonares NHC denture teeth.

The...